1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an alignment layer of a liquid crystal display apparatus. More particularly, the present invention relates to a method of forming a vertical inorganic alignment layer and a liquid crystal display apparatus having the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, a liquid crystal display includes an array substrate, a color filter substrate and a liquid crystal layer. The liquid crystal layer includes a plurality of liquid crystal molecules and is disposed between the array substrate and the color filter substrate. The array substrate and the color filter substrate each include an alignment layer to align the liquid crystal molecules of the liquid crystal layer.
The alignment layer is classified as either a horizontal alignment layer or a vertical alignment layer. The horizontal alignment layer aligns the liquid crystal molecules to be aligned in a horizontal direction with respect to the substrates while a voltage is not applied to the liquid crystal layer. In contrast, the vertical alignment layer allows the liquid crystal molecules of the liquid crystal layer to be inclined relative to major surfaces of the substrates while the voltage is not applied to the liquid crystal layer.
In conventional alignment layers, the horizontal alignment layer and the vertical alignment layer include a polyimide-containing material. The vertical alignment layer is primarily formed through processes such as printing the polyimide-containing material on a process substrate, baking and curing the printed polyimide-containing material.
Recently, a size of the process substrate used for printing the polyimide-containing material has increased in order to reduce product costs. However, when the size of the process substrate increases, it is difficult to uniformly form the polyimide-containing material on the process substrate.
Further, a response speed of a patterned-vertical alignment mode liquid crystal display apparatus having the vertical alignment layer depends on a pre-tilting angle of the vertical alignment. However, when the vertical alignment layer includes the polyimide-containing material, the pre-tilting angle of the vertical alignment layer is not adjustable through the currently used processes to form the vertical alignment layer.